The Sixth Tamkang International Conference on Ecological Discourse

full name / name of organization:

Tamkang University

contact email:

josephyu@mail.tku.edu.tw

We take great pleasure in announcing the sixth Tamkang International Conference on Ecological Discourse, to be hosted by the English Department at Tamkang University, Tamsui, Taiwan, on December 19-20, 2014. The general theme of the conference is “Speculative Materialism: Contexts and Paradigms for Ecological Engagement.”

Reflecting recent developments in ecocriticism and the emergence of competing paradigms within the field, we invite papers exploring diverse new trends as situated in national and regional contexts. The conference will bring together scholars, writers, and activists interested in developing dialogues between new/ecological materialists and related interrogations of materialism in science, philosophy and literature by others, including speculative realists (object-oriented ontologists) and affiliated scholars such as Bruno Latour, to name only the notable. In addition, new paradigms just beginning to be discussed in ecological studies are found in the recent work of Alain Badiou, who has developed coherent agential models that focus on how events are recognized while also retaining a place for ethical accountability in ways amenable to posthumanist subject modeling as well as aesthetics. German systems theorist Niklas Luhmann and the influential philosopher of space Peter Sloterdijk also present new approaches to environmental issues and cultural engagements. We are especially interested in generating discussion on local approaches engaging new materialisms in all their forms in the context of literary and cultural production.

We welcome papers or panel proposals that engage with any aspect of the general theme. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the following: